Two Lawmakers Criticize Bush on Eavesdropping

A couple of lawmakers said yesterday they will press President Bush to justify his decision to allow domestic eavesdropping, rebuffing suggestions by Republicans that their criticism of broad executive authority puts the nation at risk.

"I think Karl Rove made a big mistake last Friday to use this issue as his opening salvo to Republican operatives," said Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the senior Democrat on the intelligence committee.

"The terrorists aren't going to check our party registration before they blow us up. . . . We're under attack as America," she said on ABC's "This Week."

The National Security Agency's "terrorist surveillance program is targeted at al Qaeda communications coming into or going out of the United States," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said in a statement later yesterday. "It is a limited hot-pursuit effort by our intelligence community to detect and prevent attacks."

He accused Democrats of making "misleading and outlandish charges about this vital tool that helps us do exactly what the 9/11 commission said we needed to do: connect the dots."

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said Rove is being divisive by seeking to exploit the terrorism threat for political gain. Wartime should not give a president unchecked authority, he said on "This Week."

"Osama bin Laden is going to die of kidney failure before he's killed by Karl Rove and his crowd," Kerry said. "We're prepared to eavesdrop wherever and whenever necessary in order to make America safer. But we need to put a procedure in place to protect the constitutional rights of Americans."